The New Hope Project gathered information on respondents over eight years using several data sources. This collection consists of three datasets: (1) Adults, (2) Child and Family Study (CFS) Parents, and (3) Youth. Information was collected on respondent's employment history, job characteristics and security, other sources of income, feelings about respondent's financial situation, material hardship, respondent's access to health care, as well as experiences with the New Hope prog... (more info)

The New Hope Project gathered information on respondents over eight years using several data sources. This collection consists of three datasets: (1) Adults, (2) Child and Family Study (CFS) Parents, and (3) Youth. Information was collected on respondent's employment history, job characteristics and security, other sources of income, feelings about respondent's financial situation, material hardship, respondent's access to health care, as well as experiences with the New Hope program. Furthermore, families with at least one child between the ages of 1 and 10 at initial random assignment were selected for the Child and Family Study (CFS). The CFS independently surveyed parents/primary caregivers and up to two focal children when applicable, and collected information about the parents' and the child's well-being. Additionally, teachers of school-aged children were mailed surveys and asked to rate the child's performance and behavior. Demographic variables include age, gender, race, nationality, citizenship, educational attainment, employment status, income, marital status, parent-child relations, and household composition.

Access Notes

One or more files in this study are not available for download due to special restrictions; consult the restrictions note to learn more.

Variables have been removed in order to protect respondent anonymity and prevent disclosure risk. All data and documentation files are restricted-use. Any user of this data must have IRB approval. Data is to be disseminated according to the ICPSR restricted-use policies and protocol.

United States Department of Health and Human Services. National Institutes of Health. Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD 2 R01 HD036038-08, NICHD 5 R24 HD042849)

Universe:
All adults over 18 years of age residing in one of the two target areas in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, whose household income was at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level and who were willing and able to work at least 30 hours per week.

This collection has been minimally processed by ICPSR due to the size of the datasets. ICPSR versions of Stata data and ready-to-go files have not been provided.

The data were originally produced by the University of Texas at Austin. The original collection of the quantitative data was administered by Westat and Survey Research Management; Ethnographic fieldwork: Thomas Weisner, Lucinda Bernheimer, Eli Lieber, Victor Espinosa, Christina Gibson, Eboni Howard, Katherine Magnuson, Jennifer Romich, Dvarti Syam. Special collaborators include Julie Kerksick, Tom Back, Sharon F. Schulz, Don Sykes; The State of Wisconsin; Milwaukee County; Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development; Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services; Wisconsin Department of Revenue; and the Milwaukee County Department of Human Services.

Methodology

Study Purpose:
The New Hope Project was created to offer services and benefits to low-income households including job search assistance, a monthly earnings supplement, and subsidized child care and health insurance.

Study Design:
Over 1,300 individuals (Primary Sample Members - PSMs) were enrolled based on particular criteria and then randomly assigned to either (1) the New Hope program group; eligible to receive the program's benefits and services for three years, or (2) the control group; not eligible to receive program benefits and services.

Response Rates:
The overall response rate for the two-year survey was 80.0 percent for the full sample; 79.3 percent for the Child and Family Study (CFS). Of the CFS sample, 77.9 percent had at least some usable child data. Of the school-aged children (aged 5 years or older), 61.8 percent had at least some teacher data available.
75 percent of parents and 72 percent of children in the CFS provided at least some responses to the five-year surveys. Of all children who responded, 63 percent had at least one teacher who responded to the five-year teacher survey.
The response rate for the eight-year survey was 80 percent.

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: